Scotland

When we were visiting Scotland, our family did quite a few walks and hikes. We climbed up mountains and cliffs, went to look for castles and waterfalls, we walked by the lochs and old ruins.

We also went looking for standing stones and stone circles!

These were not particularly famous standing stones in Scotland. We just went to look at them because they were marked on a tourist map, near to where we were staying.

In all honesty, they were a bit underwhelming.

They weren’t perched on a cliff. They weren’t on top of a hill. They weren’t surrounded by a pretty forest. There was no information board explaining the history of the stones.

They just looked like some medium-sized rocks in a farmer’s sheep paddock.

(Maybe the local sheep farmer used a bulldozer to make a circle of rocks to attract tourist like us??)

They weren’t exactly the best example of stone circles for our kids to see.

NONETHELESS, we discussed their possible age, mythology, history and local folklore around the stones – and if we used our imagination, it was kind of amazing to think what they could have meant and how long they could have been there.

Now before I left for Scotland, a few of my girlfriends alerted me to the “Outlander Phenomenon”.

There is a book series called “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon, about a 20th century nurse who, while holidaying in Scotland, touches a standing stone and gets transported back in time to 18th century Scotland, where she meets a rugged Scottish hunk and falls in love. It’s a historical fiction / romance / adventure type novel – which I read in 2001!

What I didn’t know was… it was turned into a TV series and everyone is quick to describe it to me in five words: Sexy. Erotic. Hot, Scottish guys.

Apparently the tv series is rather sexy… and there’s a lot of sex in it.

And apparently it’s been SO popular, that you can now go on “Outlander Tours of Scotland”, see some of the Scottish Highland locations from the novel and you know, touch some erect, standing stones ha!

So what do you know, I was going to some of those places.

With all that in mind, (and not having seen the TV series), I sent some totally innocent photos of ME TOUCHING A STANDING STONE to my girlfriends, which made them hoot and snort with laughter.

Ah, what are girlfriends for?!

(No one seems to know the exact purpose or function of a standing stone, so if they ever find out and it’s something sacred, I do apologise for making light of the whole situation!)

In my previous post about our holiday walks and hikes around Scotland, I received a few emails from readers asking about my hiking boots and where to buy them.

I thought I’d put together some info and links for everyone.

In 2002, I bought myself a pair of waterproof, leather hiking boots which cost me around $250. I thought they would last me the rest of my life, because I only actually wore them for 2 weeks!

But 15 years later, I took them out from where I carefully stored them and discovered that the rubber sole had disintegrated and fallen off the shoe. It would cost me about $150 – $180 to resole them, so I decided to buy myself a new pair.

However, by complete coincidence, my late mother-in-law had tiny feet like me, so I inherited her hiking boots!

So the boots (pictured above) came from my lovely mother-in-law, they are size 36 and apparently they are 30 YEARS OLD?!

If you are interested to buy something similar, this is the equivalent boot in the same brand, Scarpa, which also happened to be the same boot I was looking at.

Yep, they are an eye-watering $300. But hey, these boots were flipping amazing. I was submerging half the boot into water and my socks remained completely dry. They easily let me walk over slippery rocks, loose rocks, fallen trees. I’ve worn them to hiking Tasmania, through the Australian bush and now to Scotland.

A pair of good boots is worth every cent.

On the OTHER HAND.

When it came to buying hiking boots for MY KIDS, I was not happy to spend $120 EACH on something they were going to use for 6-7 days, never use again, and then grow out of in 6 months.

So I hunted online, found an online sports store based in the UK, took a big risk, paid $30 for shipping… and bought 3 boots.

They all worked out to be absolutely perfect and the quality was really impressive.

Hehe this isn’t a sponsored post, I’m just happy to share because I was so happy with the products, my boys all commented how comfortable the boots and jackets were, and we ended up using them everyday for 3 weeks while we were in Scotland.

PLUS I couldn’t believe how lucky I was with guessing the correct sizing of my kids (UK kids sizing is by age, and my kids are not the typical size for their age). It might have been a different story if I had to send 3 pairs of boots back to the UK?!

I went on a long 3 hour drive, with just one kid, to explore a little town, with no goal except to come home with milk and eggs. Oh what fun adventures we had! Getting up to silly antics. Taking funny photos. Having brand new experiences. Talking and laughing like we were best friends. Then I did the same again the next day, with my other kid, and then the other.

I loved every minute I had with each boy. They are all so gloriously different!

My boys are 7, 11 and 13 now… and day by day, I can almost feel time slipping away from me, as if I’m frantically trying to catch pouring water with my cupped hands.

Most times, I’m so irritated by their noise, their 12 year old language, and their boy behaviours… but in the same breath I love them to bits and I wish that they could stay little, childlike and wildly happy.

In Scotland, a mountain that is more than 3000 feet high (914m) is called a Munro. There are about 282 Munros in the British Isles… and “Climbing a Munro” is kind of a big thing in Scotland.

Actually, let me clarify, Munro Climbing is a big thing in my husband’s family, so since our kids were in Scotland for the first tine, there was a strong Scottish desire to pass on the flame.

The highest and most well known Munro is Ben Nevis, which sits at 1,346m (4,414 ft).

We tackled Ben More, which is 966m (3,169 ft). And just to give you a bit of perspective, I’ve climbed Ben More twice in 2002, when my husband and I were last in Scotland together.

Off we went!

The weather wasn’t great at the start, it was a bit overcast, windy and it rained on us too.

At least the clouds stayed off the peak, so we had a clear view of our target.

The ground wasn’t all flat grassy slopes, as the picture suggests.

Some parts were rocky, uneven, slippery, wet, muddy and some parts were just over grown with ferns – taller than my 7 year old!

There’s our target!

To tell the truth, we didn’t plan to climb to the very top. It takes about 3-4 hours to climb to the top, meaning 8-9 total hours for the kids, including rest stops.

The weather was quite unsettled on this day, so we started late in the day. Therefore in order to have a good experience, we decided to stick to a 3.5 hour climb only and a 3 hour descent.

We didn’t want to risk being stuck on the mountain with three tired kids in the cold wind and rain, and 2 hours left to walk. That would have been a bad experience for everyone!

We would stop every 30 minutes, have a snack and enjoy the view.

Yep, the views were spectacular! We could see our car parked by the side of the road.

Imagine walking up some steps for 3.5 hours… then throw in lots of loose dirt, slippy rocks and ankle-twisting grass tufts.

It was challenging and so much fun.

I really enjoyed myself!!

Did I mention that the views were spectacular?!

As you can probably tell, I took sooooo many photos.

My kids were champs. They all did so well.

And this was our highest point. As we suspected the weather had turned and it became much colder and windier. Clouds were skimming the peak.

We had climbed 2/3 of Ben More. The top looked so close!

Perhaps we could have climbed for another hour to the top, but it would have added another 2 hours for the trip down.

Besides, if the top got covered in cloud, we wouldn’t be able to see anything. And depending on how thick the clouds were, there was a possibility that visibility would drop to 1 metre and someone might lose their footing and fall down a cliff?? No thanks.

Like I said, we decided to enjoy the view and be thrilled about how far we had come.

We took lots of silly family selfies, noisy videos, and epic panorama photos.

I love this photo I took of my kids taking a nap on top of the mountain haha.

On the way down, I spotted this perfect thistle – the national flower of Scotland.

And I took this postcard-perfect photo of the humble, prickly weed!

All up, it was a 7 hour adventure of a lifetime and an absolute highlight of our trip.

Maybe our family will come back in the not so distant future and do the whole climb to the top.

It was such an incredible experience to touch the moss covered rocks, to run my fingers along the edges of the stones, to feel the cold walls, to smell the musty darkness of the rooms… and imagining the kind of life people lived hundreds of years ago. My head exploded!

This is Moy Castle, built in the 15th Century, featuring 3 floors, its own well and a dungeon.

My favourite part of it was its dreamy exterior texture and colours.

This is the inside of a ruined nunnery on the Island of Iona.

The island is rather famous and sacred, because Saint Columba established a monastery there in AD563, which became central to the spread of Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom (Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland).

And this is a ruined farmer’s croft we found while one of our mountain walks.

My kids had such a hoot walking around in and around it, exclaiming how it was like a real life Minecraft house, haha!

The sunshine changes the shadows, which changes the textures, which changes the mountain’s features. The sky, mist and clouds change, illuminating and highlighting even more of the mountain’s features… EVERYTHING makes the mountains look different each day. It’s like an infinite masterpiece from nature.

So far, our highlight has been hiking up into the Scottish Highlands. The wilderness.

This is Malcom’s Point, on the very remote west coast of Scotland. It’s rough, wild and definitely not recommended on any tourist maps.

This particular day, we walked about 6 hours in total, hiking over a river, through the rain, mud, rocks, poo, overgrown meadows, tufty fields, past ruined farm houses and up along little goat paths.

We followed the stream and watched it turn into a waterfall off the cliff.

That view! I could have stared at it and soaked it up all day.

It was such an amazing day out with my family.

My boys were thrilled beyond belief! And my husband and I were thrilled to have shared it with them!

It was definitely one of the most memorable experiences we’ve had together :)

One of my favourite memories was climbing up Ben More (means “great mountain”), the tallest mountain on the Isle of Mull, West coast of Scotland.

We spent close to 8 hours walking, hiking and climbing on all kinds of grassy, rocky, muddy, icy surfaces.

When we reached the top – with the elevation of 3000 feet – we looked down and the world below was covered in a white carpet of clouds. It was magical.

In the photo above, I was contributing to a “cairn”, a small pile of rocks, that marked the summit of another lower lying adjacent mountain.

As we walked down the other side of the mountains, we would slide, like crazy teenagers, down hills of loose grey pebbles, for metres at a time, jamming our shoes deep into the ground to find our footing.

Here, we were half way down the mountain.

As we walked, we watched the weather clear up around us. We took little breaks to just sit on the grass, talking, laughing and just watching the elements transform in front of our eyes.